Collingwood players were sitting down for lunch during the pre-season of 2014-2015. Nathan Buckley walked up behind then 18-year-old Brayden Maynard, who had just joined the club. As his teammates tucked in, Maynard was occupied by his mobile phone. The Magpies coach wouldn't stand for it though.

"Bucks comes up behind me and goes 'you've got to put your phone away. This is time to connect with your friends and talk to your friends and make friends',' Maynard recalls.

Back for the future: Brayden Maynard poses at the Holden Centre.Credit:Pat Scala

"Ever since then I never take my phone out. I'm used to it now. So I barely look at my phone during the day ... I don't touch it."

This is just one adjustment the defender has had to make since being taken by the Pies at pick 30 in the 2014 draft. From skill, to fitness, to commitment, life as a professional footballer has challenged the Sandringham Dragons graduate.

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Maynard celebrates a goal.Credit:Getty Images

The stumbling blocks belie the statistics though, because Maynard has already played plenty of senior football. His debut in round 14 last season was overshadowed by that of father-son selection Darcy Moore. The subsequent period has been turbulent for Buckley's side, but Maynard has become a regular, appearing in 16 of the 19 matches since that night against Hawthorn at the MCG.

Maynard's adroit left-foot kicking is his most eye-catching attribute. But in classic left-footer style, his right-foot can be a weakness.

Enter Scott Pendlebury. The Collingwood skipper may be streets ahead of Maynard as a footballer, but they share two key similarities. Both played junior basketball, and both are left-footers. As such there could be few better than the captain to help Maynard, 19, improve his non-preferred side.

The pair work together twice a week in one-on-one sessions. "[Pendlebury] said to me, 'whenever you're on the sprung floor, kick with your right foot. Don't kick with your left foot'.

Maynard tussles with Bulldog Liam Picken.Credit:Getty Imagesg

"He's been pretty important in the way I go about that. He's a very good role model and I definitely look up to him."

Maynard is spoilt for choice when it comes to role models. The youngster nearly became Adelaide's first father-son selection, with his father Peter just missing the games requirement at Glenelg that would have made Brayden eligible to join the Crows. Brayden says his father - who also played eight games for Melbourne - continues to be a driving influence. "He always gives me 'room for improvements,' but at the same time he lets me know what I did well.

Side by side: Maynard (far right) joins in the circle after his first win last year.Credit:Getty Images

"He's pretty firm and direct."

The family's footy connection doesn't end there. Maynard's maternal grandfather Graham Campbell was both a player and coach at Fitzroy, and they too talk about about the game. Maynard is the youngest of three children, his brother Corey, 24, is a professional basketballer, now weighing up his options after his club - the NBL's Townsville Crocodiles - went defunct earlier this year. Brayden still lives at home with his parents in East Brighton. He is an animal person, and the proud owner of Ruby, a 16-year-old golden retriever. His liking for dogs extends to work, too. Last week Maynard started a three-month placement at Seeing Eye Dogs Australia, where his responsibilities include feeding and playing with dogs, and cleaning kennels.

"I absolutely loved my first day down there. I'm being taught how to work them properly."

Maynard concedes he's "not the smartest bloke going round".

Teammate Adam Treloar calls the teenager a "space cadet" although Maynard insists that's only as a response to banter he serves up to Treloar about the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder.

But rather than the intellectual requirements, it's the level of commitment needed to be an AFL player that has taken Maynard by surprise. "Just the amount of work you have to do, the amount of work you have to put in, in the pre-season, off-season even, and then during the year.

"The meetings is something that definitely poked out the most. Meetings every day."

On-field, conditioning has been his biggest issue. "Fitness is definitely a big thing that I've got to improve on. And I've still got a way to go. But getting a few games under my belt it's definitely helped.

"I felt I got my running fitness up, but game fitness is different to running fitness."

Maynard said he was "pretty stuffed" after the round-one loss to Sydney, but feels he is better able to run out games than he was at the start of the year. He attributes much of his steady progress to backline coach Ben Hart, who has helped him significantly with his spoiling.

But when it comes to the defensive part of his game, Maynard says it's tackling that he loves the most. "When I lay a big tackle, I feel like it gets the boys up and about."

It's a craft that he and the Pies continue to hone. "With people ducking and dropping their knees to get a free kick you have to be smarter to work around that.

"That's something the club's been working on a lot lately, being able to tackle properly, even when people do drop the knee. Obviously it's pretty hard. The more you practice the better you become at it.

"The last month or so we definitely picked up in the tackling we've been doing, just in technique, because of the dropping of the knees."

It's been a tough year at Collingwood. March's drug headlines were followed by April's form slump and May's injury plague. But Maynard says he's confident that things will turn, so long as the Pies stay on course. Unity is crucial. "We're a family, we stick together."